Do Us All A Favor, Would You? {Guest Post!}

Hello!  My name is Mrs. Robinson and I blog at My New Wife Life.

On my blog I write about marriage and what it's like to be a newlywed, our sick-nasty tattoos, our little Chihuahua named Zombie, recipes, health & my recent goal to lose some weight, among other things.  If that sounds like your idea of a good time, stop on over.  I'd love to have you!  Enough about me...let's get on to the good stuff! 
The whole word verification thing on Blogger has gotten out of control.  Are you with me?  

"Please prove you're not a robot?"  So...basically Blogger is telling us that when we fail to recognize some of the extremely skewed letters, we fail the human test?  That's pretty harsh.  I don't know about y'all, but that messes with my self esteem!  Haha.  :)  The best thing to do in negative relationships like these is to get out and get out now.  I'm going to tell you how to give Word Verification the boot.
How To Remove Word Verification

Step 1:  Determine if  you are using the old or new Blogger.  Refer to the pictures below if you aren't sure.  

Step 2:  If you are using old Blogger, skip to Step 4.  If you are using new Blogger look in the top right corner of your screen and find the "Blogger Options" button.  Refer to pictures below to see where this button is and what it looks like.

Step 3:  Once you have found the "Blogger Options" button, pictured above, click on on it and you will see a menu drop down.  Click on the 5th option - "Old Blogger Interface."  Be patient while your page is reloading.  :)  

Step 4:  You are now looked at the old Blogger Interface.  Beneath the "Manage Blogs" header, find and click on "Settings" as pictured below.

Step 5:  Once you click on "Settings," you will see the page below.  Click on "Comments."  

Step 6:  After you have reached the "Settings" & "Comments" Page, scroll down until you see the left-justified words, "Show Word Verification for Comments?"  See the picture below for reference.

Step 7:  Select "No" because that is the correct answer.  Scroll down some more and for the love of all things precious, SAVE your SETTINGS.  :)  I always forget this part!  

To return to the new Blogger, simply scroll all the way up to the very top of the screen and click "Try the updated Blogger interface."  

And they all lived happily ever after.  Ashley, thank you for having me!  :)  I hope that any of you reading this will make these changes and help make the blogging world a better place full of magical comments and smiles!  :)  Have a great day! 

Hello Pretty Blog, Goodbye Ugly Blog

I was perusing around the net and ran across some pretty awesome blog designs that made me totally realize what a crap-chute of design mine actually was. So after spending a total of two days obsessing over the differences I narrowed down a few and got to work. There's no way on God's green Earth I can take credit for figuring out how to create the elements that did sling-shot me into the blogging present. For that, I can thank one amazing lady... Morgan, keeper of the blog "The Little Hen House". She has shared a few tips and tutorials that are now priceless to me. Thankfully, it only took me an afternoon to read, learn, and create - I wish the same for you! 

Check out how I made my "I am Ashley Marie" link to my 'all about me' seperate page by clicking here. Sure, Blogger already has a widget for this, but using these directions and an outside photo source (she uses Photobucket through Wordpress, I use Picasa because my Blogger photos are automatically linked to the album) and choosing how large you want the link pixels to be gives me much more freedom, which I like. (I want control, total control, bwah ha ha!!!)

     

  *** Additional tutorial on things I had to figure out myself ***

How to Add a Page to Your Blog

1. on the Blogger home screen click 'Pages' on the left sidebar

2. Hover over 'New Page' and select 'Blank Page'

3. you will be redirected to a new window that mimics a 'New Post' screen, decorate that page as you would a post with information you want specific to that 'Page' and 'Publish'.

4. When you create the 'Button', use the URL of that published page as the link in the code. Wa La!

How to Get the Photo Link from Picasa
1. Upload the image into Picasa
2. Click the photo
3. Click 'Link to this Photo' on the ride sidebar
4. I selected the 'Small 288px' for my images to the left of this post and checked the box that says 'Image Only (no link)'
5. Copy the entire script in the box under 'Embed Image' and paste in tutorial's script. Wa La!

Check out how I made my "Chickadette" button by clicking here. This was one of the first elements of other blogs I totally just had to have! How cool is it that other people who like your page can 'grab' the html code and post a direct link from their site to yours? Ummm, abso-freakin-lutely awesome is how.

Honestly, I am SO PROUD of myself for learning these tutorials and SO GRATEFUL that Morgan decided to share with the rest of us what feels like should be proprietor secrets. Go thank her by loving all up on her blog... click the image below to be redirected!